Always Woodstock

The acting is in the exaggerated style of live stage, high school level. It could be a good story. C'mon actors, you can do better. Who directed this? Isn't the director supposed to direct? The opening scene in the bedroom: tacky, gratuitous, unnecessary; did the director feel the plot and story were so lacking that she had to resort to that?

45 minutes in, kept watching hoping it might get better, the acting got better.

Catherine Brown (Allison Miller) is stuck in her life which has her silently screaming. She has long abandoned her dreams of singing. She lost her parents early in life. Her boyfriend Garret (Jason Ritter) is a self-obsessed actor. She hates her job as a musician rep and then is forced to wrangle hard-partying Jody Sinclair (Brittany Snow). When Jody accuses her of assault, she gets fired. She comes home early to find Garret cheating on her. She's sleeping on her friend Ryan's couch. She decides to go upstate to live in her childhood home in rural Woodstock. Emily (Rumer Willis) is the tough local bartender and Noah Bernstein (James Wolk) is the cute doctor. On the drunken first night at the bar, she proclaims her love to Noah. Coffee shop owner Lee Ann (Katey Sagal) nurtures her music dreams.

Miller and Wolk are a perfectly cute rom-com couple. They are both photogenic and sweet-natured although they are more like sidekick material. I want to like this very much for them. This is director Rita Merson's debut. The newcomer doesn't have all the skills to make this work. The timing is not there. The jokes are lacking. I'm surprised at the number of solid actors in the cast. Even the minor roles have familiar names. It doesn't make this good and may actually hinder the small town feel needed for Woodstock. It feels like Hollywood trying to pretend to be small town. The same can be said of the record company. It's some kind of Hollywood facsimile of a record company from the recent past. A lot of this movie falls flat despite my desire to root for the couple. Even at its best, this is a formulaic rom-com. It's not until Forever Sex when I finally get my first laugh. I still don't understand Emily's motive. This tries to be a fun quirky rom-com. It tries.

Wow, negative reviews galore. For me, movies are escapism and this one fits nicely into that category. It had great music, which I love, and a likable cast. The story is relatable in certain areas, enough get your attention but distant enough that you're not spending the next few hours dragging up ghosts of past relationships and poking at them like a sore tooth for days on end. I enjoyed it for what it was. I think most people who enjoy romcoms will. Doesn't have the high cheese factor of a Halmark romance nor the depth of a real tear jerker... it's just a safe, happy, enjoyable ,"girl learns lessons and maybe finds love, while reaching for who she wants to be" kind of movie.

I tried watching this movie, without pausing or fast forwarding, but it was difficult. The lead Actress has a pretty good voice, if that's all she did through the entire movie, it may have saved it. But, no, she actually tried to act or tried acting through a poorly written script. The talent of the cast was there but the plot and scripted word was not. Had it been done by another Directer or Writer or even Producer, who knows how well it could have turned out. I hated every squeaky minute of this girl's poor attempt at acting. Good God, a toddler would have done better. The music chosen was great, Katy Segal was great and under used, but the rest was just awful. I feel bad for anyone who had anything to do with this script or movie, I'm sure they tried, but failed miserably. I don't think I've ever rated a movie this low but it just doesn't deserve much better.

First off, let me say that chances are you have already seen a good version of this movie. The film can be summed up by the following: A struggling writer who is in a bad relationship gets a chance at love. Does that sound familiar? Well, it should because those are the plot points from at least a dozen different movies (The Hanna Montana, Movie, Begin Again, Pitch Perfect, Pitch Perfect II, A Star is Born, How To Be Single, etc.) However, that isn't the problem. The problem is this movie has no upside to it. The main character is annoying and an awful person. The love story is forced and undercut by a lousy protagonist. And the side characters are all bland. The music is okay but nothing special. Also, the film claims to have Brittany Snow in it. However, she literally only in it for the first 5 minutes, which is a shame because it was cool to see her act against her normal type of character as the whacked-out D.J. I wouldn't even consider it a Brittany snow movie since she is in it so little. They must have just hoped that her name would be enough to get people to watch, and sadly it did. But don't make my mistake. Save yourself. Watch her scene on YouTube and call it good.